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92 Responses to “General Debate 16 October 2012”

I see from media reports the Airforce allowed dangerous cargo to be placed on an aircraft placing passenger lives seriously at risk. There needs to be a full independent investigation into this with a possible court martial for those responsible.

The 2 issues are related . Muslims see that in multicultural Britain the law can be perverted to the purposes of “identifiable minorities”. They are now pushing for their own version of limiting age old and hard won freedoms.

Ira Bailey’s involvement in discovering and publicising the MSD data security hole has raised some eyebrows and even a ‘quip’ from JohnKey as to whether he was paid for the story (seems unlikely, there’s much bigger media pockets than NG’s).

But quibbling about motives and methods are a minor side story at most, Bailey (and Ng) should be praised for finding and publicising this massive ballsup by MSD without (apparently) putting data at greater risk. Ira Bailey versus MSD.

What happened to the parachutist’s launch capsule when the balloon burst (as it suerly did – eventually) ?

The balloon was automatically cut off and the capsule parachuted back to earth.

The team remotely detached the capsule from the balloon, allowing it to fall back to Earth under its own parachute. It hit the ground 55 miles east of Baumgartner’s own landing site. The balloon was deflated via a nylon “destruct line”, with the lightweight balloon material – known as the envelope – falling back to Earth to be gathered and removed by truck. The capsule could, in theory, be used again, but the balloon envelope can only be used once.

It amazes me how speeding re-entry capsules and heavily weighted skydivers can be slowed down gently enough by parachute deployment, and that the parachutes don’t tear to shreds with the presumed forces involved.

Muslim rape in Scandinavia.
Muslim rape in northern England.
And now Muslim rape in France.

Muslim gang-rape in France”

[Excerpt]:-

“The thing is.. the convicted men are all Muslims. At least, they have recognisably Islamic names. Yet the mainstream press are not reporting this fact. Is this religio-cultural aspect of French gang culture taboo? As much as it appears to be in the UK? Why the whitewash? Why the ethno-religious censorship? Why is the issue of gang-rape committed by young men identified as belonging to a particular minority background consistently suppressed? Are there reporting restrictions? Infringement of their human rights? A conspiracy of silence?”

When you follow a paedophile prophet it can only be expected its followers will want to ape him.
How soon before such multi-cultural delights will be experienced by our own young ladies?
Islam truly is the Religion of Rape!

A lot of those parachutes open in stages… first stage looks something like a condom, with just a small opening at the bottom end to partially open the chute and create a little drag, then stage two opens the chute a little wider to increase the braking effect a little more, and it’s only in the final stage that you see a fully open umbrella/mushroom shaped parachute like you’d expect.

Youtube is a real treasure trove of Nasa videos and newsreels about all sorts of pop-science stuff like this!

Is NZ Prime Minister John Key going to face ‘Contempt of the House’ proceedings for ‘misleading the House’ over his knowledge of the Kim Dotcom investigation by GCSB – for which he is the responsible Minister?

Richie McCaw goes into the All Black changing room to find all his team mates looking a bit down. “What’s up guys?” he asks. “Well Richie, to be honest we’re having all sorts of trouble getting motivated for this game against Australia. We know it’s important but we’ve Just beaten Argentina and South Africa in consecutive weeks and, let’s be honest, it’s only the Aussies this week. They’re crap and we simply can’t be Bothered”.

Richie looks at them and says “Okay, I hear what you’re saying. The way I’ve been playing recently, I reckon I can beat these Aussies by myself. Why don’t you fellas go down to the pub, have a few jars and catch it on telly. I really think I can do this by myself”

The rest of the team reckon it’ll work and they agree.

So Richie goes out to play the Wallabies by himself while the rest of the ABs go off for a few pots. After a couple, they begin to wonder how the game is going, so they get the barman to put the telly on. A huge cheer goes up as the screen reads (after 10 minutes): “New Zealand 7, (McCaw, converted try) — Australia 0″. Dammit, he’s actually beating Australia all by himself. Surely he can’t do it, can he?

Anyway, a few more beers later, the telly goes off and the game is temporarily forgotten until someone suddenly remembers, “Heck, It must be full time now, let’s see how Richie got on”. They get the telly put back on and look on eagerly.

There on the screen is the result: Full-time from Eden Park,: New Zealand 7, (McCaw, 1 converted try); Australia 7, (Sharpe, 1 try, Cooper Conversion.) They can’t believe it! It’s a draw. Richie v Australia and he single-handedly managed a draw against the Aussie Wallabies!

Delighted, they rush back to Suncorp Stadium to congratulate him. They find him in the dressing room, still in his gear, slumped over with his head in his hands. He refuses to look at them. “I’ve let you down guys,” he mumbles disconsolately. “I’m so sorry, but I’ve really let you down.”

“Don’t be an idiot skipper; you got a draw against Australia, all alone, all by yourself. And they only scored a single try, right at the death, after 79 Minutes!”

“No, no, I have” says Richie. “I’ve let you down. I hope you can forgive me. Fifteen minutes from full time, I got sent off!”

Yes and there were those horrendous gang rapes in Aussie by Bilal and co..Lebanese muslims..They are in jail but at the time , they did not get much attention in the NZ media. Also in Aussie , it has been found that Sudanese and Somali crime rates are much higher than crime rates of other nationalities..But of course , no one is allowed to say this..
I am still haunted by my close encounters with the Somali madman in CHCh..When he finally got to court , I didn’t buy the mentally ill thing..When he deliberately bumped into me twice , I looked closely at him and concluded that he was high on Khat.. The mental illness thing probably lessened his sentence..If I am haunted by him , just think how all those other Christchurch people feel. We don’t hear much about Khat these days..

(2)A chief executive appointed under subsection (1) is responsible to his or her local authority for—

(c)ensuring that all responsibilities, duties, and powers delegated to him or her or to any person employed by the local authority, or imposed or conferred by an Act, regulation, or bylaw, are properly performed or exercised; and

(d)ensuring the effective and efficient management of the activities of the local authority; and

(e)maintaining systems to enable effective planning and accurate reporting of the financial and service performance of the local authority;

A Local Government Official Information Act reply from Auckland Council dated 21 November 2011, from Darryl Griffin, (Auckland Council Manager for Democracy Services), confirms the lack of transparency in the spending of public monies by Auckland Council, in refusing to make available for public scrutiny the ‘devilish detail’ ie: the names, the scope, term and value of 5000 contracts related to 12,500 suppliers contracted to Auckland Council, on the basis that:

‘To collate and publish these would be a major exercise logistically and cost-wise’.

The papers, dating from October 1962, show that four former officers from the elite Nazi death squads had been invited to the Cuban capital, although subsequent reports could only confirm that two had arrived.

Hey Penny I came down to Aotea Square yesterday to join the ‘Occupy’ movement but only saw a couple of homeless,drunken bums. Did the location change? I’m really keen to be part of this ‘World Changing’ movement…

WILL NZ PRIME MINISTER JOHN KEY FACE ‘CONTEMPT OF THE HOUSE’ PROCEEDINGS OVER HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE GCSB INVESTIGATION OF KIM DOTCOM?

DID JOHN KEY DELIBERATELY MISLEAD THE HOUSE OVER KIM DOTCOM?

How was a presentation by a GCSB staff member, given to Prime Minister John Key on 29 February 2012, AS PART OF A BRIEFING ON THE BROADER CAPABILITIES OF THE BUREAU, which ‘contained a short reference to the Dotcom arrest a few weeks earlier, as an example of cooperation between the GCSB and the police’ – NOT A BRIEFING BY THE GCSB ON ITS ROLE IN THE KIM DOTCOM MATTER?

“Prime Minister John Key says a review of the Government Communications Security Bureau’s files confirms he was not briefed about the Kim Dotcom case until 17 September.”

Who carried out this ‘review’ of the GCSB’s files?

Because, arguably both they and the Prime Minister LIED?

If the purpose of the PM’s visit to the GCSB on 29 February 2012, was a ‘briefing on the broader capabilities of the bureau,’ and the Kim Dotcom raid which involved the GCSB was part of that briefing, then how, in all honesty and befitting the ‘highest ethical standards’ can it be said that the Prime Minister was not briefed about the Kim Dotcom case until 17 September 2012?

Conduct of Ministers
2.52A Minister of the Crown, while holding a ministerial warrant, acts in a number of different capacities:

in a ministerial capacity, making decisions, and determining and promoting policy within particular portfolios;
in a political capacity as a member of Parliament, representing a constituency or particular community of interest;
in a personal capacity.
2.53In all these roles and at all times, Ministers are expected to act lawfully and to behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards. Ultimately, Ministers are accountable to the Prime Minister for their behaviour.

TO WHOM IS THE PRIME MINISTER ACCOUNTABLE FOR ALLEGED BREACHES OF THE ‘HIGHEST ETHICAL STANDARDS’???

“He says while neither he nor Mr Fletcher can recall the reference to Dotcom being made he accepts it might have happened.
As a result he will correct an answer he gave Parliament on the matter last month when the House resumes sitting in two weeks.”

If you’re the Prime Minister – and you allegedly LIE to the House over NOT being briefed about the Kim Dotcom case until 17 September 2012 – when you were briefed about the Kim Dotcom raid on 29 February 2012 – how is this NOT ‘Contempt of the House’?

It is a contempt deliberately to attempt to mislead the House or a committee, whether by way of a statement, in evidence or in a petition. [98] This example of contempt, while always potential, was given explicit recognition in 1963 when, following a political cause célèbre (the Profumo affair), the House of Commons resolved that a former member who had made a personal statement to the House which he subsequently acknowledged to be untrue had committed a contempt of the House. [99] It has been submitted that there is an established constitutional convention that Ministers should always tell the truth to Parliament as far as this is possible without harming national security. [100] Whether this type of contempt embodies a convention or not, regarding lying to the House as a serious transgression of parliamentary etiquette (quite apart from any moral considerations) has been said to be the only way for Parliament to keep a check on the executive. [101]

The contempt can be committed by anyone taking part in parliamentary proceedings. It consists of the conveying of information to the House or a committee that is inaccurate in a material particular and which the person conveying the information knew at the time was inaccurate or at least ought to have known was inaccurate. [102]

Members deliberately misleading the House

Most commonly allegations that there has been an attempt deliberately to mislead the House involve statements made by members in the House – whether by way of personal explanation, in the course of debate or in replying to a question.

There are three elements to be established when it is alleged that a member is in contempt by reason of a statement that the member has made: the statement must, in fact, have been misleading; it must be established that the member making the statement knew at the time the statement was made that it was incorrect; and, in making it, the member must have intended to mislead the House. The standard of proof demanded is the civil standard of proof on a balance of probabilities but, given the serious nature of the allegations, proof of a very high order. [103] Recklessness in the use of words in debate, though reprehensible in itself, falls short of the standard required to hold a member responsible for deliberately misleading the House. [104] The misleading of the House must not be concerned with a matter of such little or no consequence that is too trivial to warrant the House dealing with it. A misunderstanding of this nature should be cleared up on a point of order. [105]

For a misleading of the House to be deliberate, there must be something in the nature of the incorrect statement that indicates an intention to mislead. Remarks made off the cuff in debate can rarely fall into this category, nor can matters about which the member can be aware only in an official capacity. But where the member can be assumed to have personal knowledge of the stated facts and made the statement in a situation of some formality (for example, by way of personal explanation), a presumption of an intention to mislead the House will more readily arise. [106]

As well as a deliberate misleading of the House arising from a remark in the House, it is conceivable that members could mislead the House by their actions: for example, from a deliberate misuse of a voting proxy, by delivering to the Clerk a totally different document from that which the member obtained leave of the House to table, [107] or by misrepresenting their authority to act on behalf of an absent member. [108]

Not in my considered opinion as an ‘anti-corruption’ campaigner – who took a private prosecution against John Key over Tranzrail – after a formal written complain to the Police and SFO resulted in no action being taken.

And don’t you just love those sensationalist shock/horror Telegraph stories! So a dictator fearing invasion tried to gather weapons to resist that invasion from whomever was willing to sell them to him. What’s new? I’m surprised Castro didn’t just ask the US to sell him arms on the same terms as Israel gets…like, free. No oil within firing range?

But surely more germane is, why has the US always been so keen on invading Cuba?

Oh, of course, existential threat and all that jazz. Yeah, right. Or maybe just permanently pissed off at being faced down by a tinpot dictator of a proud little island.

Interested to know what people think about the story I linked to in my 11:35 post. Do you agree that trolling is an art and a perfectly acceptable past-time, and that – as Jaime Cochran states – some people need to learn how to take criticism?

She claims that some people think that trolling damages society, which she states is “absolutely ridiculous”.

I have a great distaste for tactless trolling and believe it cheapens it as an art form. I steer clear of bullying and malevolent trolling.

If you’re not from the internet, you probably won’t get it or at least have a skewed perception when you hear the term ‘troll’, which is unfortunate. Although, that means you’re probably great troll fodder for people like me.

Hopefully I’ve just made people laugh and maybe think about things differently. If I’ve offended people, then they should take a long hard look at themselves, because what I do is harmless fun.

If I’ve really offended people, it’s probably because they deserved it and that’s their own fault.

All men with principals that were once worshipped by most of the Left. I can see why you’re feeling the hurt. And how many days is this now that you’ve whining about poor old Krugman being caught in his own partisan stupidity?

Anyway, I see that you’ve done your usual spray of incoherent “rebuttals” so let me just repeat the key points:

– The real Castro story is not him buying weapons, it’s about buying men from Nazi death squads.

– The Chomsky aspect is funny because, aside from being a Castro defender, one of his constant refrains is that the US took over from the Nazi’s after WWII. If he had a soul it would be in pain over this news.

– The US was perfectly justified in wanting to invade Cuba during the missile crisis rather than watch that nutter get control of nuclear weapons, and of course we now know that he was apoplectic about the Soviet decision to withdraw them, wanted control and was more than happy at the prospect of a nuclear war. The US was also perfectly justified in wanting to get rid of a communist regime just ninety miles from it’s shores. But that was 50 years ago, making your claim – as is usually the case with you – a farcical diversion. Since then the US has wanted to invade Cuba about as much as they want to invade North Korea: it would just mean having to fix up decades of communist insanity. Much better to sit back and watch them both go down the toilet, “pride” and all.

– Finally, Krugman …. heh, heh, heh. He must really be feeling the heat even inside the NYT if he has to come out with such a defensive burp. Well too bad, it’s the price of being a slave to the Democrat Party. He should have known better, and as I said the other day, if you want to bang the Keynesian drum there are other economists you could quote from that have not let their partisanship override their intellect.

“The thing is.. the convicted men are all Muslims. At least, they have recognisably Islamic names. …”

About half of them will be Muhammed… or Muhamed or Muhamad of Mohamed or Mohammad or…ahhh feck it.

It’s amusing that Muslims make a big deal about bringing the prophet’s name into ill-repute. Muslims are doing that well enough, thank you very much.

Another irony is that they don’t consider it blasphemy to say that insulting Muhammed is blasphemy, e.g. for writing his name on a toilet wall. In Islam, blasphemy can be against a mere human. According to normal definition, this itself would be considered blasphemy.

So the difference between Nazi death squads and the US death squads as suppliers of arms is…? Maybe you should ask the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Sudanese, the Yemenese, the Pakistanis… Death squads are death squads, ask Osama bin Laden. Anyway, I think you’ll find the Soviets were happy to fill Castro’s arms dumps, just as Kennedy was happy to authorise death squads into Cuba to blow them up, along with factories, schools, hospitals…”all the the terrors of the Earth.”

Your friend Noam, since you mention him so often, provides a balanced assessment of the Cuban missile crisis here:

Re Krugman, he’s big enough to look after himself but I thought it was karma that Krugman posted that missive just after I had determined that you were engaging in the very tactics he mentioned. Like accusing him of having two views on deficit reductions when the two views relate to entirely different circumstances.

New Zealand was lucky to have Cullen when governments in the US, UK and France, to name just three, were busy running deficits in boom times. Krugman frowned on that practice, and I’m sure most would agree with his criticism. Now, the US and UK (French voters at least chucked out Sarkozy) needs to worry less about debt and more about growth. He says deficit reduction can come later, which it can. Argue against this by all means, I would enjoy the discussion, but don’t misrepresent him to score cheap points amongst the less well-informed.

But you prefer not to argue on facts facts, just your own invented factoids.

How to spot a confederate cross dresser
– You wear a dress that’s strapless and a bra that ain’t.
– You wear combat boots with a minidress.
– You wear jeans with a belt buckle that’s bigger than your fist.
– You have a Ford F150 pick-up truck, with a gun rack, a Dale Earnhardt license plate frame, and a Confederate flag on the tailgate, next to the bumper sticker that says “I sell Avon Skin-So-Soft.” (Karren how many of these do you have?)
– You try to wax your legs with Turtle Wax.
– You braid the hair that sticks through your fishnet stockings.
– Wear a black John Deere baseball cap with pearls.
– You use glitter to highlight your mustache.
– You wear tube tops with your mini, because it shows off your Harley-Davidson tattoo.
– Your favorite band ring came off a cigar.
– You keep spare ammo in your bra.
– You get a run in your stockings while changing a tire on your motorhome.
– Your purse is a toolbox.
– You pluck your eyebrows with a pair of needle nosed pliers.
– You store your lipsticks in a socket-wrench box.
– You use duct tape to keep your “tuck” in place.
– You call your vanity “your work bench.”
– You use a pocketknife to sharpen your lip and eye liners.
– “Doing your nails” means sorting the ten-pennies from the sixteen-pennies.
– Your favorite leather skirt was made from the moose you shot last Fall.
– Your new sandals are made from truck tire re-treads your found on the road.
– You keep a spare lipstick in your toolbox.
– You wear a pair of C-clamps as screw-on earrings.
– Your best silver necklace is made from beer can pull-tabs.
– Your nail enamel is made by Rustoleum.
-. You use paint thinner to remove your makeup.
– Your moisturizer says “non-detergent SAE 10W30″ on the container.
– You remove your leg hair with duct tape.

That’s what fools often call people who present discomfort to the listener. The fool part comes in when the fool fails to precieve their discomfiture arises from within their own [foolish] tummies [aka cognitive dissonance] rather than from the message the speaker is imparting.

John Pilger is the same. Sometimes he’s right and sometimes he’s wrong. But when conservative’s discount it simply because of who he they think he is, they portray their ignorance not their wisdom.

Over the past three years, Starbucks has reported no profit, and paid no income tax, on sales of 1.2 billion pounds in the UK. Yet transcripts of investor and analyst calls over 12 years show Starbucks officials regularly talked about the UK business as “profitable”, said they were very pleased with it, or even cited it as an example to follow for operations back home in the United States.

Presented with the contradiction between Starbucks’ UK accounts and its comments to investors, Starbucks’ CFO Alstead identified two factors at play, both related to payments between companies within the group.

The first is royalties on intellectual property. Starbucks, like other consumer goods businesses, has taken a leaf out of the book of tech companies such as Google and Microsoft. Such firms were identified by Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a September hearing on how U.S. companies shield billions from tax authorities. He said they were engaged in “gimmickry” by housing intellectual property units in tax havens, and then charging their subsidiaries fat royalties for using it.

I was in Starbucks recently when I suddenly realised I desperately needed to fart. The music was really loud so I timed my fart with the beat of the music.
After a couple of songs I started to feel better. I finished my coffee and noticed that everyone was staring at me… and suddenly I remembered I was listening to my iPod…
…
And how was your day?

“Pepe, since when deed you ever hear of a meerage that smell like bacon…ees no meerage, ees a bacon tree.”

And with that, Luis staggers towards the tree. He gets to within 5 metres, Pepe crawling close behind, when suddenly a machine gun opens up, and Luis drops like a wet sock. Mortally wounded, he warns Pepe with his dying breath,

Dumb as a box of Rocks
A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF REPRESENTATION WE HAVE IN CONGRESS,TRUE STORY:

A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at an academic function where Nancy Pelosi happened to appear. Ms Pelosi took the opportunity to schmooze the good doctor a bit and asked him a question with which he was most at ease.

‘Would you mind telling me, Doctor,’ she asked, ‘how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?’

‘Nothing is easier,’ he replied. ‘You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track..’

‘What sort of question?’ asked Pelosi.

Well, you might ask, ‘Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?”

Pelosi thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, ‘You wouldn’t happen to have another example would you? I must confess I don’t know much about history.’

PUT YOUR CAR KEYS BESIDEYOUR BED AT NIGHT
Tell your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your parents your Dr’s office, the check- out girl at the market, everyone you run across.
Put your car keys beside your bed at night. If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get in your house, just press the panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies.
This tip came from a neighborhood watch coordinator. Next time you come home for the night and you start to put your keys away, think of this:
It’s a security alarm system that you probably already have and requires no installation. Test it. It will go off from most everywhere inside your house and will keep honking until your battery runs down or until you reset it with the button on the key fob chain. It works if you park in your driveway or garage If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the burglar rapist won’t stick around… After a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won’t want that. And remember to carry your keys while walking to your car in a parking lot. The alarm can work the same way there ….. This is something that should really be shared with everyone. Maybe it could save a life or a sexual abuse crime.
P.S. I am sending this to everyone I know because I think it is fantastic. Would also be useful for any emergency, such as a heart attack, where you can’t reach a phone. My Mum has suggested to my Dad that he carry his car keys with him in case he falls outside and she doesn’t hear him. He can activate the car alarm and then she’ll know there’s a problem.

A man with a winking problem is applying for a position as a Sales Representative for a large firm.
The interviewer looks over his papers and says, “This is phenomenal. You’ve graduated from the best schools; your recommendations are wonderful, and your experience is unparalleled.
Normally, we’d hire you without a second thought. However, a Sales Representative has a highly visible position, and we’re afraid that your constant winking will scare off potential customers. I’m sorry…we can’t hire you.”
“But wait …. ,” he said. “If I take two aspirin, I’ll stop winking!”
“Really …. ? Great ….. ! Show me …. !”
So the Applicant reaches into his jacket pocket and begins pulling out all sorts of condoms: red condoms, blue condoms, ribbed condoms, flavoured condoms; finally, at the bottom, he finds a packet of aspirin. He tears it open, swallows the pills, and stops winking.
“Well,” said the interviewer, “that’s all well and good, but this is a respectable Company, and we will not have our employees womanizing all over the country …. !”
“Womanizing …. ? What do you mean …. ? I’m a happily married man!”
“Well then, how do you explain all these condoms …. ?”
“Oh, that …. ,” he sighed. “Have you ever walked into a pharmacy, winking, and asked for aspirin …. ?”

Did you spot how you shot-yourself-in-the-foot with your opening sentence? I did.

No I didn’t Kea. What the heck are you talking about?

Don’t reply, I can’t be bothered anyway, since the video on how the Royal Family really truly actually are shape-shifting Lizard creatures from the 4th Dimension is about to start, and I may be sometime.

Betts adopted the historian John Hirst’s distinction between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ multiculturalism. Soft multiculturalism refers to the demographic fact that the Australian population now has diverse origins and recommends we act with tolerance towards migrants. Hard multiculturalism holds that ethnic groups in Australia should form their own communities, maintain their own distinctive cultural beliefs, languages and customs, and that government should support them to do all this. Hard multicul­turalism encourages immigrants to withhold loyalties and affilia­tions to Australia . It fosters dual citizenship and even pays some migrants welfare pensions if they return to their home countries permanently. But rather than respecting the integrity of Australian culture as equally worthy in its own right, hard multicultur­alism is quite inconsistent in its hostility to almost everything Australian. All cultures are equal but one culture is less equal than others. While soft multiculturalism enjoys widespread public support, survey research has consistently shown hard multiculturalism produces a great divergence of opinion be­tween the less educated and university graduates. By the 1990s, three-fifths of university-educated Australians favoured hard multiculturalism, while only one quarter of non-university-educated people agreed. Moreover, graduates are far more likely to support hard multiculturalism than migrants themselves, who side more with Australians of their own education level. ‘Atti­tudes to multiculturalism do not divide the majority of immi­grants from the majority of the Australian-born,’ Betts argues, ‘they divide the new class from the rest, irrespective of birth­place.’ [4]

This great divide began in the 1970s when a set of ideas emerged about immigration, race and the nature of Australian suburbia. These ideas were both moral principles and symbols of social status. They served the new class as markers of cultural identity. ‘If a taken-for-granted assumption develops that only crude, ethnocentric, narrow-minded, selfish people are critical of immigration,’ Betts writes, ‘to refrain from such criticism (or to express approval of immigration) is an easy way of demon­strating that one is not infected by such disabilities and, indeed, belongs to quite a different category of person.’ [5] The record of survey opinion and other data shows, she says, that during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, disproportionate numbers of the intel­ligentsia were either pro-immigration or opposed to those who were critical of immigration.

The 1960s was a decade of university expansion, with a number of new institutions established plus a substantial growth in enrolments at the old sandstones. The ensuing social mobility produced a first-generation professional middle class whose members sought ways of distinguishing their new position from their own largely lower-middle-class and working-class origins.

The Vietnam War of the 1960s and 70s was reconceptualised by this social movement. In 1966, when characterised as a war to defend liberal democracy in South Vietnam against the encroachments of international communism, it had produced a landslide victory for Harold Holt and the Liberal Party. By the 1970s, the new generation had redefined the war as a struggle for freedom by an ancient and gentle Asian people against the imperialism of the American military-industrial complex. His promise to withdraw Australian troops from Vietnam paved Gough Whitlam’s and the Labor Party’s path to victory in 1972. By moving quickly and publicly to end the last vestiges of the White Australia Policy, the Whitlam administration cemented anti-racism and a rejection of old Australian values as central components of the new ideology. Opposition to both the Vietnam War and White Australia forged the links between the new identity and support for immigration. ‘For some activists,’ Betts writes, ‘parochial Australians and their cherished way of life came to be seen as the problem common to all these causes, and immigration diversity as the universal solution. Racism provided the key.’ Their assumption was that old or parochial Australians had supported White Australia and the Vietnam War because of their racist beliefs. The same fault, combined with the inane materialism of their outer suburban lives, purportedly prejudiced them against immigrants. ‘An active celebration of diversity, and further immigration might cure them but, even if it did not, these policies would make it clear that the new class would not tolerate parochial sentiments and that they would make the most of every opportunity to confront them.’ [8] Any politicians who might have doubts about the policy, especially those from the Labor Party trying to retain their old constituency, were isolated and ridiculed by a supportive news media, and identified either with old men from another era, like Bruce Ruxton and Arthur Tunstall, or with extremist fringe groups. Aspiring members of this in-group soon realised that correct views on race and the composition of the migrant intake were essential badges of entry. To question immigration was to step outside the circle of acceptability. In 1972, the foreign corre­spondent Bruce Grant returned to find ‘an air of unreality’ sur­rounding the whole question. ‘The governing elite pre-empted the issue and made ordinary Australians feel that to be racially intolerant was to be unfashionable, even unpatriotic.’ [9]

‘In Canberra in the 1960s, a small group of sociologists and social policy researchers had decided that migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds were not doing as well as they should. No immigrant political identities had emerged within the major political parties and migrants seemed to be dispropor­tionately represented on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Even though this was an outcome to be expected, indeed inevitable, for the early stages of any large-scale program of immigration to another society, it was defined as a social problem. A research industry, funded by both governments and universities, soon emerged to confirm immigrants’ status as victims. Although their findings were usually loaded and migrants to Australia actually progressed better than they did in most countries, they took the field unchallenged. [10] The group, whose activities have been analysed in another landmark work of Australian social science, The Origins of Multiculturalism in Australian Politics by Mark Lopez, decided that the then offi­cial policy of assimilation was the cause of the ‘problem’ they had uncovered. [11] Their initial response was soft multiculturalism, with its call for tolerance and respect of the migrants’ ori­gins. But in the climate of opinion in the radical Sixties, the analysis soon found that it was not merely the attitude of Aus­tralians that was the problem but the very structure of the host society. The academic Marxists who emerged to join this burgeoning movement predictably found Australia was exploiting its migrants and that their position would not improve without structural change. They helped shift the conceptualisation of the issue from assimilation, the idea that the migrants should change to fit Australia , to multiculturalism, the notion that Australia should change to fit the migrants. Hard multiculturalism was born.”

Hasn’t Krugman’s ilk has had its way for years? And look at the result. Did he predict the financial crisis? I’ll listen to those who did, thanks. Pfft….ouch, that’s gotta hurt.

An economist doesn’t get a seat at the table of power unless he’s feeding ways to politicians, of how to print or spend more and more money. Because it’s really all about power; not about who’s objectively right or wrong. When power is the goal, there’s really no higher priority. And there’s always useful tools like Krugman willing to feed the machine with whatever line of bull is in perfect line with the times. If not him, then someone else.

Krugman’s economic philosophy is based on the imaginary science of “psychohistory”. A nice adolescent fantasy. Isn’t that often the pattern with leftists, though? They think they have come to understand how the world works at an early age, and they keep feeding the fantasy instead of learning how the world actually works. It’s the luxury of our favourite lifelong politicians, who never worked in the real world and entered politics after their student days.

Btw, John Key and Mitt Romney are also financial rapists. Just like to find some common ground here. Kumbayar.

No, Krugman did not predict the GFC. How many did? The only one I know of who claims to have is Steve Keen. Therefore, on that basis, you write off every other economist in the world, including those who run countries economies. Good for you.

You say Krugman is feeding politicians yet he is running around the world trying to persuade governments to follow his prescriptions because they have rejected, so far, to their cost, his advice. Contradictory?

On what do you base your analysis of Krugman’s philosophy? Your psychohistory sounds like psychobabble to me.

Here’s a list of those who predicted the global financial crisis. These weren’t perpetual doomsayers but people who really did understand what was coming and why, more or less.http://investorhome.com/predicted.htm

It shouldn’t be a surprise that there are this many, because why *couldn’t* one see it coming if it was fairly clear to people what *had* happened after it had happened?

About Krugman and Asimov see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon#Paul_Krugman (no reference but his quote is out there). It’s not surprising the appeal of Asimov’s ‘psychohistory’ for a budding economist with strong central planning tendencies. Being as public a face as Ben Bernanke for a rotten financial system (and who’s more of a face for the faceless bankers? I suppose Obama…), I think that makes him pretty culpable for the situation, if not a literal “power broker” as I somewhat loosely said.